


Awkward Stage

by harrycrewe



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrycrewe/pseuds/harrycrewe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written, oh, ages ago, for this prompt on the kink meme:</p><p>http://st-xi-kink-meme.livejournal.com/13264.html?thread=12408784#t12408784</p><p>Sulu gets de-aged, but not to full childhood... instead he gets to revisit his gawky, gangly, acne-plagued, creaky-voiced, inconvenient-boner-popping teenage years. His boyfriend (I'm down with Chekov or Kirk) finds this hilarious. But sweetness and support ensue when poor Sulu lets it slip how completely mortified that all his colleagues have seen his big old Awkward Stage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awkward Stage

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'ed

Hikaru found it endearing that Pavel got little pimples on the side of his face and sometimes down his back. He liked referring to Pavel’s sex drive as “teenaged” too.

Pavel had already been eighteen when they started going out, but he couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that part of what Hikaru liked about him was, well, his age: that Hikaru found something a little extra exciting about being with someone younger.

He had tried to bring this up this once or twice, but Hikaru’s reaction had been unbearable, almost like he’d been waiting for such a conversation and had planned out how to handle it. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “I like you the way you are.”

Fine, yes, but that wasn’t helpful when what Pavel was trying to ask was, “Do you still take me (this? us?) seriously?” or, “would you still love me if I was older?”

 

Which was why it was so odd to find himself, after a run from the bridge to the transporter room not unlike one he’d made three years before – with his hands on his knees, gasping, trying to bring his breathing under control, before looking up to see –

A kid: fourteen or fifteen, maybe. Skinny, buried within Sulu’s lieutenant’s uniform, a smattering of acne across his cheeks and forehead. He was peering myopically around the transporter room, blinking at what he saw.

“Er,” said Scotty, expressively.

Pavel agreed.

 

Small Hikaru kicked his feet impatiently on the biobed as he waited for Doctor McCoy to finish his scan, and picked at a spot on his chin. Pavel couldn’t help but hover. Hikaru glared at him.

“Who are you, anyway?” It might have sounded fierce, but his voice was pitched only a little lower than a child’s. 

“I told you, I am Pavel,” Pavel tried to explain. “Your friend.” He wanted badly to go over and comfort Hikaru, but he could also see that he was as prickly as one of those little cacti he liked to cultivate. 

“Just relax,” said Doctor McCoy, gruff but reassuring. Pavel watched as Hikaru looked at the McCoy and blushed beet-red.

Blushing for the Doctor, Pavel realized. Hikaru hadn’t blushed like that at him. 

As it turned out, though, Hikaru seemed to take better to Pavel than to anyone else on board. Spock reduced him to shifty wordlessness; the Captain left him in open-mouthed admiration, repeating afterwards to Pavel, “he’s so cool”. But Pavel seemed to be the only one Hikaru felt comfortable actually talking to. It wasn’t until an hour or two into their tour around the ship that Pavel realized why: on the observation deck, Hikaru looked out over the stars, with wonder, and then turned around and leaned, false-casual, against the rail.

“So, why’re you here?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen any other kids aboard, except you. What, do your parents…?” He stopped as Pavel started to splutter. 

“I am not…” his English was always worse when he was flustered, he had to scramble for the words. “I am not _child_. I am navigator, first class.”

Hikaru was already holding his hands up in apology. “Sorry, dude, I didn’t know!” He frowned, looking at Pavel through long, dark lashes. “How old are you, then?”

“Nineteen,” Pavel said, proudly.

Hikaru looked impressed.

“Man,” he said. “You’re old.”

For the first time that day, Pavel had found something he liked about Small Hikaru just a little bit more than his adult counterpart.

“You can stay with me,” he said. “If you want too, tonight.” Then he immediately remembered why that might be a bad idea: their double bed that probably still stunk of sex, since he’d forgotten to pull the sheets off that morning, and the quarters crammed full of his stuff and Hikaru’s mixed together.

In the next moment he remembered, no, it was fine. That was Hikaru’s room he was thinking of, and he still had his own quarters, used mostly for storing things now, and there was practically nothing in it and they could go there. No need to overwhelm the kid with unnecessary information.

He couldn’t help wondering, though, what this Hikaru would think if he knew they were going to end up together. Would he be happy? Disappointed? Given the way he’d been ogling the Captain, and the Doctor, Pavel couldn’t help but wonder.

They threw down a blanket and a couple of pillows for Hikaru, and he made himself sort of a nest next to the Pavel’s narrow bed. Pavel managed to dig up a couple of t-shirts and boxers left behind in the drawers for them to wear, and again it was cute to see how they engulfed Hikaru.

“Are these Starfleet-issue?”Hikaru asked, holding the logo way too close to his face, to see. Catching Pavel’s confusion, he said, “My contacts didn’t come with me.” He scowled. “I want lasek, but Mom says not until I’m finished growing. She doesn’t understand at all.”

“Da,” Pavel said. “We will mention that to Doctor McCoy in the morning. I’m going to turn the lights out now, ok?”

“Can I do it?” without pausing for permission, Hikaru said, “Computer, lights 0%,” and the room was pitched into absolute, inky darkness.

Pavel cleared his throat. “Computer, lights 2.5%” he said. Still dark, but now a more normal darkness…

“What are your parents like?” Hikaru said, settled below him. “How did you get through school so quick? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Um,” Pavel said. “My parents are scientists, in Russia. I studied a lot at home…” he tried to think how to explain Hikaru to Hikaru. “I have a boyfriend,” he said, finally. “He’s away right now.”

“Really?” he felt Hikaru sit up next to him. “What’s it like?”

“Having a boyfriend?” Pavel felt bemused, but he felt Hikaru nodding.

“Good, most of the time. Sometimes we don’t understand each other, but… um… he likes plants, like you.”

“Ugh,” said Hikaru. “Who told you I liked those? So boring.”

“Oh. Well...” Pavel shrugged.

“That’s not what I was asking about anyway.”

“What were you asking about, then?”

“You know,” Hikaru’s eyes were lasered in on him, he could feel it. “I bet you have sex with him, right?”

Pavel could feel himself blushing. He thought for an instant of Hikaru pushing into him, licking his collarbone, and running his hands down Hikaru’s slim hips. The kid was in front of him, it seemed inappropriate just remembering, although he wasn’t sure why.

“Sure,” he said, carefully. 

“What’s it like?”

“Good.” 

“Come on, you gotta explain it better!” Hikaru frowned. “I’m not a kid, you know. I mean, I’ve messed around with guys before.”

“Have you?” Now Pavel was genuinely curious. He couldn’t remember Hikaru every saying, for example, who his first crush was.

“Well, no,” Hikaru admitted, his voice dropping to an embarrassed whisper. “I mean, someone kissed me once, Ioan Greer. But we didn’t... uh… it was a French kiss, though.”

“That’s fine,” Pavel felt himself smile. “Don’t kiss anyone else, ok? Just wait for me.” Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Hikaru immediately started squawking, and Pavel blushed.

“Hey, relax, it’s just a joke,” he tried.

But then Hikaru was in a bad mood, because he said Pavel had made fun of him, and they went to sleep.

In the morning, he woke to the sound of water running. When he managed to pry his eyelids open a crack, he saw water spilling out from under the bathroom floor.

“I’m sorry!” Said Hikaru, half embarrassed, half belligerent, “I didn’t mean to…. I don’t know why…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pavel said, frowning, and sent a comm to maintenance to come and fix the plugged toilet. Then he went across the hall and banged on Scotty’s door, to ask if they could borrow his bathroom for their washing-up. 

The engineer kept up a rapid and somewhat nonsensical stream of conversation with Hikaru -well, mostly Scotty talked, and Hikaru said, “fine,” and “sure,” and “duh” - while Pavel kept half an ear on them from the bathroom.

When he was finished, and had found one of his old uniforms for Hikaru to wear –it was actually a little too small for him, at the wrists and the ankles – Hikaru immediately grabbed his arm and said, “ok, thanks, Scotty, we gotta go.”

“What’s wrong?” Pavel asked, once they got into the corridor. Hikaru shrugged. “I dunno. He was weird.” He shrugged. “I don’t like him.”

“Hikaru!” Chekov was a little shocked. “Scotty is one of your good friends.”

“Really?” Small Hikaru looked skeptical.

Chekov felt troubled. The Hikaru he knew was effortlessly friendly with everyone, and never seemed bothered by Scotty’s occasional awkwardness –or Pavel’s, for that matter. Maybe he was different now that he was older. Or maybe sometimes it still bothered him. He snuck a glance at Small Hikaru, swaggering down the corridor in front of Pavel – maybe he was swaggering because he was nervous? Pavel shook his head to clear his thoughts. 

“What are we going to do today?” Hikaru asked. 

“First to the sickbay, to see if Doctor McCoy can find you some contacts,” 

“Awesome.” Hikaru frowned and scratched his face – there was a new spot forming there, Pavel was almost sure of it. 

 

“Sure thing,” McCoy said. “We can whip you up some in no time. Need to check the prescription.” While he was scanning Sulu’s eyes, he added, “I think we’ll have a fix soon on your other problem, as well. Scotty’s taking care of it.”

“What’s my other problem?” Hikaru asked.

McCoy frowned at him. “It’s a form of amnesia.” He said. “Your body has a cellular memory, and our transporters, disrupted by the Valaían planetary shield – the planet is in a slightly different phase of space-time – caused you to be offset. That’s why you’ve literally lost a decade- we need to get you synced back up to the present.”

Hikaru trembled. 

“No, Hikaru, don’t worry, it’s all right!” Pavel hastened to reassure him. “The Doctor and the Engineer are the very best.”

But Hikaru was still moody as they leave sickbay. Pavel tried to think how to reassure him, and tried to think what to do with him for in the meanwhile, while McCoy and Scotty worked. They had already seen the recreation rooms and the observation deck…

After a breakfast where Hikaru made fun of Pavel’s habit of mainlining caffeine, and ate his way through an entire mountain of pancakes with lakes of syrup and butter, Pavel hit upon the idea of the botany lab. He knew Hikaru had said he wasn’t into plants yet, but still, maybe, it was worth a try.

When the door to the lab slid open, the lights were already on, heating rows upon rows of Hikaru’s plants, which were like his pets, really – they each had their scientific names and he knew the characteristics and the temperaments of each and every one. But Small Hikaru just looked bored. He kicked at the ground with his toe and yawned, although Pavel tried, increasingly without confidence, to recreate the excitement and love that usually came into Hikaru’s voice when he talked about his experiments.

It just got worse and worse, until they finally got to the end of the last row; Hikaru’s Japanese maple bonsai. Small Hikaru caught sight of it, and just stared.

“My grandfather has one of those,” he said, finally. “It looks just the same.” He kept staring, and then he started to look all around the room, eyes wide open, like he was really taking it in for the first time. When he came full circle, he was staring back at Pavel, looking at him with new eyes too.

“This is –,” he stopped, and swallowed, and tried again. “This is – this is what you were talking about, isn’t it?”

Pavel just nodded, helplessly.

“This is it.” Hikaru whispered to himself, and then he repeated it with more confidence, though his voice slipped on the last note. “This is it!” 

“Don’t worry,” Pavel tried to tell him.

“Worry?”Hikaru said. “This is freaking amazing! I’m in Starfleet, and I’m going to be a badass, and I’ve finally got a hot boyfriend-” he looked at Pavel and blushed. “Sorry.” 

Pavel was smiling, ridiculously. “That’s ok,” he said. “You’re not too bad yourself.” 

Hikaru grinned back, the first big smile Pavel had seen on the kid’s face since he turned fourteen, but then he looked suddenly anxious again, and twisted back to check the bonsai over his shoulder.

“My grandfather’s dead, I guess.”

Pavel nodded. Six months ago, the last time they were on Earth, Hikaru had brought that tree aboard. 

“I don’t – I didn’t-“Small Hikaru’s voice broke. “I don’t know what-”

“It’s ok,” Pavel said, reaching out, pulling him close, into one of those bear hugs that Russians did best.

Seven hours later Lt. Hikaru Sulu was back to himself. This time he was been beamed back wearing Pavel’s old clothes, so they were too small and tight on him, especially in the crotch. Hikaru scowled down at himself and didn’t say anything, but Pavel knew he just wanted to get out of the transporter room and changed as soon as possible.

“I can’t believe I clogged the toilet!” He said, still fuming, as they walked back to their quarters at a good clip. “I can’t believe I told you about Ioan Greer! I can’t believe I got hard in front of Doctor McCoy!”

“What?” Pavel squeaked. “When did that happen?”

“When you had to go out in the hallway to talk to the Captain. God,” Hikaru put his face in his hands. “He gave me that it’s-natural-and-it-happens-to-everyone speech.”

Pavel couldn’t help it. He laughed, mostly just with relief at having Hikaru back again, and was still laughing as the door to their quarters slides open. He allowed himself to fall onto the bed, and watched covertly as Hikaru stripped off his too-tight boy’s shirt and pants and rummaged for his own clothes.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he said, finally. “I got to see a different side of you. It was nice, to meet – young Hikaru.”

Hikaru looked at him and groaned. “No,” he said. “You saw what a mess I was. I was so…” he frowned, and then balled up the shirt he was about to put on and sat on the bed next to Pavel. “I just wanted you to see me as your cooler, older boyfriend,” he said. “You’re so much more mature than I was at your age –when you were fourteen you were already in college, when I was getting acne and whining about everything.”

“I liked it,” Pavel insisted. “You were still you. I like to see it, how you become who you are.”

Hikaru snorted. “You aren’t going to break up with me now that you know what a loser I was?”

Pavel reached to hook an arm around Hikaru’s neck, drag him down into a kiss, and prove how very much he was planning on not breaking up.


End file.
